The present disclosure relates generally to a system and method for color printing. In particular, the present disclosure relates to a system and method for characterizing color separation misregistration.
In multi-color printing systems a limited number of color separations are used for marking a substrate for achieving a wider variety of colors, with each separation marking the substrate using discrete shapes, such as dots having a circular or oval shape, or periodic line patterns. This concept is generally known as color halftoning, and involves combining two or more patterned separations on the substrate. The selection of color separations and halftone design are carefully chosen for achieving a visual effect of the desired color.
Many prior art printing systems use cyan, magenta, yellow and black (also referred to as CMYK) color separations that mark a substrate using discrete cluster dots. In accordance with one prior art method, the dots may be marked in a dot-on-dot fashion, by marking the substrate with a first and second color separation, with the dots of the second color separation superimposed over the dots of the first color separation for achieving the desired color. In accordance with a second prior art method, the dots are applied in a dot-off-dot fashion, with the dots of the second color separation placed in the voids of the dots the first color separation for achieving the desired color. Multi-color printing systems are susceptible to misregistration between color separations due to a variety of mechanical related issues. For both dot-on-dot and dot-off-dot rendering, color separation misregistration may cause a significant color shift in the actual printed color that is noticeable to the human eye.
Another marking method of rotated cluster dot sets is widely used since anomalies (e.g., color shifts) due to color separation misregistrations are subtle and less detectable by the human eye. However, even in these cases color misregistrations can be objectionable, particularly at edges of objects that contain more than one separation. Therefore it is important to characterize color separation misregistration in order to perform corrective action in the print engine.
Many prior art methods for characterizing misregistration of color separations include using physical registration marks. The registration marks include two fine straight lines, each line formed using a different color separation. The two lines are aligned and joined to form one straight line. Alignment of the two lines is analyzed, with misalignment indicating misregistration of one of the color separations relative to the other. The analysis may include studying the printed registration marks with a microscope and visually determining if misregistration has occurred. Such analysis is tedious and not conducive to automation. The analysis may include imaging the marker with a high resolution scanning device and analyzing the high resolution scanned image using complex software for determining the positions of the registration marks relative to one another. This type of analysis can require expensive high resolution scanning equipment and may involve a significant amount of computational power. Furthermore, this type of processing is prone to error due to even small defects, such as toner splatter.
In another prior art method used for higher end printer devices outputting high volume and/or high quality images, misregistration of color separations is characterized by measuring the transition time between the edges of two primary separation patches (e.g., cyan and magenta) on a moving photoreceptor belt. The patches have angled edges (e.g., chevrons) that allow the determination of misregistration in both the fast scan direction (transverse to the longitudinal axis of the photoreceptor belt) and slow scan direction (parallel to the longitudinal axis of the photoreceptor belt). Simple photodetectors are used to measure the time between the moving edges of the chevrons, and this can in turn be used to compute the misregistration in both slow and fast scan directions. A drawback to this method is the inability to take misregistration measurements across the page, as the photodetectors are present in only two or three locations across the width of the photoreceptor belt. This method of separation misregistration characterization has been designated for use with high end printer systems due to the cost of the photodetectors and associated analysis software.
To overcome the drawbacks in the prior art, it is an aspect of the present disclosure to provide a system and method for characterizing misregistration of color separations using a method that is conducive to real time measurement using low resolution scanning technology.
It is another aspect of the present disclosure to provide a system and method for analyzing a test pattern using simple processing of few elements for minimizing the processing load.
It is another aspect of the present disclosure to print and analyze a test pattern, where the analysis is highly immune to page defects upon which the test pattern is printed.